2025 is a big year for reading books by people I know/knew/met. And could’ve been even bigger if I’d read faster over the winter break! Still, that just means 2026 will starts with a book by someone I know… and one where I made it into the Acknowledgements! And in case you were wondering, yes, it was by design that I read the two “Born to Run”s back-to-back!
- The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (entire series completed), Writer: Ryan North, Artists: Erica Henderson, Derek Charm, & Naomi Franquiz
- Sex Lives of Superheroes: Wolverine’s Immortal Sperm, Superman’s Porn Career, the Thing’s Thing, and Other Super-Sexual Matters Explained, Diana McCallum
- Modern Creole: A Taste of New Orleans Culture and Cuisine, Eric Cook
- All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians, Phil Elwood
- A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
- Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman, Patrick Hutchison
- We Stand On Guard, Writer: Brian K. Vaughan, Artist: Steve Skroce
- Away with Words: An Irreverent Tour Through the World of Pun Competitions, Joe Berkowitz
- Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry
- Omnivores, Lydia Millet
- Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, John Green
- The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story, Pagan Kennedy
- Spellbound: My Life as a Dyslexic Wordsmith, Phil Hanley
- The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource, Chris Hayes
- Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, Susan Morrison
- Cassandra at the Wedding, Dorothy Baker (Afterword by Deborah Eisenberg)
- The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit, Ron Shelton
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
- I Am a Rose: A Life in Poetry, Stacey Levitt
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
- The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
- The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life, A.J. Jacobs
- Pageboy: A Memoir, Elliot Page
- The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden
- The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
- All Fours, Miranda July
- Fantastic Four (2022) 1: Whatever Happened to the Fantastic Four?, Writer: Ryan North; Artists: Iban Coello, Ivan Fiorelli; Color Artist: Jesus Aburtov
- I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are, Rachel Bloom
- Spent: A Comic Novel, Alison Bechdel
- The Midrange Theory: Basketball’s Evolution in the Age of Analytics, Seth Partnow
- Fantastic Four (2022) 2: Four Stories About Hope, Writer: Ryan North; Artists: Iban Coello, Ivan Fiorelli, & Leandro Fernandez; Color Artist: Jesus Aburtov
- Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Tom King, writer; Bilquis Evely, artist; Matheus Lopes, colorist
- Ultimate Spider-Man 1: Married with Children, Writer: Jonathan Hickman, Artists: Marco Checchetto & David Messina, Color Artist: Matthew Wilson
- Ultimate Spider-Man 2: The Paper, Writer: Jonathan Hickman, Artists: Marco Checchetto & David Messina, Color Artist: Matthew Wilson
- Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
- Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
- Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, Christopher McDougall
- Fantastic Four (2022) 3: The Impossible is Probable, Writer: Ryan North; Artists: Iban Coello, Ivan Fiorelli, Francesco Mortarino, & Carlos Gomez; Color Artist: Jesus Aburtov, & Brian Reber
- John Candy: A Life in Comedy, Paul Myers
- Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated (Overtime Edition), Shea Serrano
- The Uncool: A Memoir, Cameron Crowe
- Queen Esther, John Irving
- Expensive Basketball, Shea Serrano
- The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion